One possibility is to “drop an anvil” on the utopia. How about When Worlds Collide set in 2060? How do the society and individuals in it react to an unexpected, outside threat? Especially an overwhelming one—a planet is orders of magnitude more threatening than the wimpy comets and asteroids of Lucifer’s Hammer, Armageddon, and Deep Impact. Note that with an outside threat, you can still have a real utopia to write about.
Yes, but the story is the outside threat, not the real utopia. It’s still implying that your utopia isn’t interesting enough to write about on its own.
One possibility is to “drop an anvil” on the utopia. How about When Worlds Collide set in 2060? How do the society and individuals in it react to an unexpected, outside threat? Especially an overwhelming one—a planet is orders of magnitude more threatening than the wimpy comets and asteroids of Lucifer’s Hammer, Armageddon, and Deep Impact. Note that with an outside threat, you can still have a real utopia to write about.
Yes, but the story is the outside threat, not the real utopia. It’s still implying that your utopia isn’t interesting enough to write about on its own.
And with it easier to write stories about bad things than good, that’s a mark in its favor, though not evidence of practicality.